The Greater Augusta Healthcare Network met to hear about the im­pact of Medicaid expansion in Geor­gia under the Affordable Care Act. Geor­gia is among about half the states, including most of the Southeast, that have refused Medicaid expansion; Gov. Nathan Deal said it is too expensive.

An analysis by Dr. William Custer of Georgia State University would argue otherwise, said Timothy Sweeney, the director of healthy policy for the Georgia Budget & Policy In­sti­tute, who presented it to the group. Georgia is 50th in Medicaid spending per enrollee and, at 1.8 million, has the fifth-highest population of uninsured and the fourth-highest number of uninsured children, outranking New York in the number of kids without coverage, he said.

The 13-county region surrounding Augusta actually has the lowest rate of uninsured children in the state but has 66,000 uninsured overall, about half of whom would be eligible for coverage under Medicaid expansion. Under current state rules, the only adults who can get Medicaid are parents of eligible children who make less than half of the federal poverty level, or around $9,000 a year for a family of three, Sweeney said.

While Deal’s office has said Medicaid expansion will cost more than $4 billion over 10 years, the analysis pegs that at $2.1 billion a year. For every dollar the state spends on Medicaid expansion, it would get $14.46 in federal funds, according to the analysis.

“It’s really a pretty fantastic state investment,” Sweeney said. For the Augusta area, that would mean $180 million more each year in health care spending with an economic impact of $340 million each year, he said.

The Custer analysis projected that Medicaid expansion would create 56,000 jobs statewide, 3,073 in the Augusta area, with about half in health care and half from the economic impact, Sweeney said.

“Those new people go out to lunch and rent apartments and buy cars,” he said.

With increased sales tax, income tax and premium taxes figured in, the annual cost to the state would really be around $35 million a year, about .2 percent of the current fiscal year budget, Sweeney said.

“It’s a relatively small impact on state spending,” he said.

Without Medicaid expansion, 3.7 million people nationwide and about 400,000 in Georgia will fall into a coverage gap where they don’t qualify for Medicaid and because they fall below the poverty line won’t qualify for subsidies in the Health Insurance Marketplaces, Sweeney said.

That prohibition was put in place in the health reform law presumably to keep states from dumping their Medicaid populations into exchanges back when the federal government could penalize states for not expanding Medicaid. The U.S. Supreme Court decision upholding the law took away that provision, making expansion voluntary, and about half the states said no.

Arkansas, one of the few Southern states expanding Medicaid, is doing so through a waiver that allows those eligible for coverage to use the exchanges to get insurance, an option advocates hope will persuade neighboring statesto reconsider, Sweeney said.

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Georgia should not expand eligibility for the Medicaid program. The proper goal would be to phase out the program slowly.

Expanding Medicaid will not create jobs. Sure, it may transfer jobs — i.e., create some new positions for bureaucrats and nurses and medical clerks while creating unemployment for those who actually have to pay for the new eligibility class.

Instead of creating even more government jobs, feeding this monster; why aren't we focusing on the REAL problem? The REAL problem is that EVERYTHING we buy, is made somewhere else!! Why is it that we can not bring these jobs overseas, back home? I just purchased a simple leather belt the other day for work, and guess what? On the belt was a little tag that said "made in China".

Why does EVERYTHING have to be made in China, Indonesia, Japan, Mexico, etc? Honestly imagine if we made all these products here; what would our unemployment level be? How many MILLIONS of people would then have jobs? Why do we never hear politicians addressing this? Yes, I've heard the arguments that if we made them hear, the products would be 5 times more expensive. Ok, let's address how to prevent this. Is it government regulation? Union contracts? Greed? What?

When are people going to realize that creating federal government jobs, is NOT growing the economy? Eventually, the government is going to run out of money; then what will they have to do to support these jobs? RAISE TAXES!! The government doesn't make money of itself!! The money the government has comes from the PEOPLE!! The only way the government can sustain creating and maintaining all these jobs is to create more revenue by raising taxes!! This is a bubble that is going to bust, one day!! I'm just a simple person; and I just don't understand how we can't bring jobs back home!! There are PLENTY of jobs to be created, we just don't seem to take meaningful steps to do so!! All we hear about are more GOVERNMENT jobs!!

more government workers to push paper (electronically) and more people to vote for even more largess from the Federal government. Most of the "money" raised to pay for the tremendous national Medicaid expansion is coming from new taxes, such as the inflated premium taxes of the Affordable Care Act, and more borrowing to increase the $17 trillion national debt. In the end we all lose.

The US "dollar" simply purchases more labor in foreign countries than it can purchase here. Unless the U.S.A. creates trade barriers, the movement of manufacturing overseas will continue.

True, but if we expanded Medicaid Georgians would be paying even more in a few years when the federal government starts reducing their funding and dumps financial responsibility on state taxpayers. PLUS, the way things are looking it is entirely possible that Obamacare may collapse financially under it's own weight and Georgia taxpayers would be 100% stuck with the full bill for healthcare for 400,000 people.

I will not buy into this argument that stealing money from working people to GIVE free stuff to other people is somehow good for the economy and creates jobs. These "welfare is great for the economy" people NEVER COUNT THE JOBS THAT ARE LOST because the WORKING PEOPLE HAVE LESS MONEY TO SPEND. The fact is that it HURTS the economy because the people who are being robbed DO NOT HAVE as much money to spend in the economy and it is MUCH BETTER for the economy if the habitual takers go out and earn it themselves and quit dragging others down.

what they are not telling you is once medicaid is expanded the federal gov't is only going to help pay or contribute funding for a limited time...and if congress is taken over by some 'common-sense" spending indivduals they can at any time cut or eliminate the additional funding and once the government stops funding its portion then the states will either have to raise taxes, cut services, or reduce spending some where else because unlike the federal gov't most, if not all states are mandated by their states constitutions to balance their budgets and most important they can't "borrow from china, or print their own money" ..kudos to gov deal for not expanding medicaid let those who are looking for more "goodies" move to states that have expanded medicaid there is nothing stopping them taxpayers cannot continue to fund the "federal free goodies giveaway" to the leeches, moochers, and parasitic welfare broodmares who birth baby after baby (that they can't afford to take care of) with little or no job skills/education and expect others to take care of them and their children. if you are offended why not take a drive thru cooney circle, lake olmstead, down east boundry, of down the lower end of laney walker or go into glenn hills, butler, laney, and josey and count the number of pregnant high schoolers proudly proclaiming they are pregnant and "gonna hab a bah-bee".....

I am a coder and billing manager for a KY site that is a CHC provider (FQHC). It is unreal the amount of Federal Funds they receive for patient care given by their providers. Their physcians and office staff are paid at a higher rate than GA providers recieve because of the Federal Funding. As a GA tax payer I like most of the rest of you do not enjoy paying for Medical Care that is as good as the care I receive for insurance my employer and I share the cost for. I know new jobs and higher reimbursement will be created if GA got on this band wagon in the short term. I just am worried about the long term effects. I am willing to do my part to help the elderly, children and people with true disabilities but I DO NOT WANT TO SUPPORT ABLE BODIED ADULTS!

Funny when they talk about indirect and economic benefits from a pipeline the say that isn't an argument (it's the environment), but now suddenly expanding a system dependent on tax payers (so costs everyone) will "trickle down" and be a big boom to the area. Course the gains our US economy have had have largely been driven by the stimulus and the govt pumping money into the economy so it does have a positive effect-though weak. But long term you can't keep pumping money into it so it has to have some form of self-sustenance. Expanding medicaid may well have a moral correlate but it doesn't an economic-and the moral really is silly in context of legal abortion. So we allow killing babies and now I'm suppose to be shocked we would deny expanding medicaid- no expanding medicaid doesn't seem so bad in context of killing a little baby-hey I can play moral relativism too. I just need millions of aborted fetuses surrounding me so I can demagogue it-compared to a freebie that isn't a constitutional right.

The ignorance of those opposed to this is astounding. Georgians are ALREADY paying the income taxes, yet the small minded, ignoramuses who are opposed to it, prefer to cut their noses off in an unsuccessful attempt to spite Obama's face. Let's keep sending our income taxes to other states. BRILLIANT!

It would appears that the deck is stacked so that those who vote to expand the entitlement culture outnumber those voting against it. It so happens those same souls who vote against it are the ones who are being exploited for funding of the entitlement. Votes ain't gonna be enough LL. Hope I'm wrong but it's certainly setting up to go that way.

Since the insurance companies have immunized themselves from the law of supply and demand, something has to be done. This isn't "free enterprise", it's monopolistic practices, and quite possibly should be investigated under the Rico Act. It's time for those of us with brains to elect a government with common sense.

So giving more people medical care means the state creates more business and wealth for its citizens? If that's the case let's find more free things to give people, paid for by taxpayers and see just how wealthy we can make the state. Cars? Houses? Cruises to the Bahamas? We'll be so well off pretty soon we'll have to close roads coming into the state like NJ.

When are you folks going to understand...YOU'RE PAYING FOR IT ALREADY!!!! Come on folks, think about it; you have a primary physician, you get preventive care. When your kid has a cold, you take him to a doctor. THAT keeps costs down. When someone without insurance gets sick, or their kid has a cold, they go to the ER. The ER is around $1000 just to walk in and go through triage. Add in all the other costs that are automatically higher because it's the ER next. Then you have the charges from the doctor(s). They can't and don't pay. Those costs are added to YOUR costs, and to the rest of taxpayers' and insured peoples' costs, and MUCH more than you will end up paying to subsidize insurance, or for a single payer system. You are HURTING yourselves. BRILLIANT!

Riverman1, are you for real? My god.....this country would fall apart if the Tea Party ever got taken seriously....the very things that you folks espouse are the things that lead to revolutions like Bastille Day, and even the Bolshevik Revolution. You would have the poor, who already have significantly less opportunity that you would have people believe, in you narrow little worlds, getting poorer and dying, you care so little. That which is espoused by the Tea Party isn't Christian, it's not even HUMAN. That ANY AMERICANS can believe what they do is unbelievable.